While Tellico Village residents seem to agree that renovations are needed at the Kahite Golf Course clubhouse, precisely when those renovations will take place is an open question, as some residents have pushed to move the project into the Property Owners Association five-year plan.
“It’s really not an effort of the POA at all,” Alan Hart, POA board president, said. “It’s an effort of the Kahite neighborhood.”
Ted Bootey is one of the people in the Kahite neighborhood that sees the need for clubhouse renovations and hopes to see the project moved up on the POA’s agenda.
“There’s a process you have to go through, and we’re trying to go through that process,” Bootey said. “I think the citizens of Tellico Village understand that there’s a process, and this is just part of what we’ve got to do. If it takes getting it in the forefront of the POA board now so we can get it on the plan at least we know, barring unforeseen circumstances, that it will be done by 2020.”
The reason renovations are needed is that as the Kahite neighborhood has grown, the community has outgrown the current annex at the clubhouse that is used for meeting space and Wellness Center-sponsored classes, he said.
“It’s outlived its usefulness,” Bootey said. “It’s difficult to do exercise routines and things that the Wellness Center sponsors — yoga classes, aerobics, palates, that sort of thing. We also use this for neighborhood meetings, and we just can’t fit in there anymore. We had a memorial service actually for one of our Tellico Village residents. We couldn’t fit everybody in there to honor the lady, and that’s unfortunate. This double-wide has been around since 2008, and it’s outlived its usefulness.”
Hart said a site plan for the clubhouse includes an expansion to the cart barn to add meeting space and the removal of the annex to place a pavilion next to the clubhouse pool.
The pavilion could prove to be beneficial for the golf course, Bootey said.
“It gives the golf group some expanded, enhanced space for tournaments and sponsorships and things like that,” Bootey said. “Sometimes it gets a little cumbersome when we have tournaments out here. There’s not a lot of space to post results. We had a junior tournament out here one time and all the kids were sitting on the lawn because there really wasn’t any place to go.”
Additional meeting space is available in Tellico Village, whether at the POA office or one of the Village churches, but Bootey said for many of the meetings traveling to the Loudon County portion of the Village doesn’t make sense.
“Our neighborhood meeting done here is to help our community understand what’s going on in our neighborhood environment, being Monroe County,” Bootey said. “So when we have the sheriff to do something with the neighborhood watch, it’s a Monroe County function. ... That is a little cumbersome, and it also is kind of out of place when you invite the candidates for sheriff or the candidates for mayor or whatever to come all the way to Loudon when it’s really a Monroe County Tellico Village issue.”
The only thing really holding the community back from being able to put the plan into action is money, Hart said.
“Right now, it’s well beyond the five-year plan,” Hart said. “What they’re asking the neighbors is to come up with something that if they could come up with some capital ... they could move it into the five-year plan.
“... Where I am right now is if the golf department, rec department come to the board with the plan that they want to move it up and have some private funds, that’s fine with us,” he added. “They have to prioritize their own needs, and where the Kahite expansion falls into their own needs I don’t know.”
Bootey said he understands that there are a lot of projects that need to be done around Tellico Village, he’s just hoping the Kahite clubhouse can be one of them sooner rather than later.
“This isn’t anything special,” he said. “What we’re doing here is trying to stay current. One of the big things about Tellico Village is we need to stay current with other communities like Tellico Village, and that means you have to have enhanced amenities, improved amenities and amenities that people in the over 55 crowd cater to and desire to have.
“This is just one element,” he added. “Whether it’s improving the clubhouse here or improving the parking lot at Tanasi that is needed or improving the clubhouse at Toqua, which is needed. ... Those are all amenities that Tellico Village needs and needs too because of the competitiveness of these types of neighborhoods. This is just one element.”
